Global warming and The Great Derangement

Introduction

I have a terrible habit of buying non-fiction books and never finishing them. Instead, I read a chapter or two and it’s not exactly that I lose all interest, but I put it down and then don’t pick it up again. I look at the book sitting there amongst other forlorn unread non-fiction books, thinking, ‘I simply must……’

I never do.

And yet, this time I have read a non-fiction book to the very end.

The book is The Great Derangement by Amitav Gosh, the Indian born, American author of many good novels and non-fiction books. In this book he accuses art and literature of its failure to alert people to the true horrors and consequences of climate change and its consequent global warming.

I finished this book during the last of the 5 heatwaves that the UK has undergone (heatwaves, which I have to say, us Brits were woefully under-prepared for) and that  made me reflect on my own derangement, as well as the wider world’s lack of foresight and readiness to act.

A look at some terms

But first – are you sometimes flummoxed (I certainly am) by the experts saying the average temperature will increase by 1.8C? And you think OK, what is this? Yes, I do admit to hearing these figures and not knowing fully what that means.

As far as I understand it, when someone says, or a report says, that the average temperature will increase by 1.8C, this is the long-term planetary average which has risen from a base-line of (usually) pre-industrial times. It doesn’t mean that every day will be 1.8C hotter, it means that over time our planet’s average heat has increased leading to heatwaves, downpours and droughts that are far more frequent and intense.

This is because, as you all know, all human activity leads to emissions of greenhouse gases, but the earth’s natural carbon cycle kept our climate reasonably stable. Of course, there were always variations from this stability with long cycles of drought and heat, not forgetting the cold with winters when the Thames froze over, but overall, the earth’s temperature was balanced and in harmony with life on earth.

Come the Industrial Revolution, and the need for energy, there was a much greater extraction of fossil fuels; first coal and then oil. Burning these fuels for energy significantly disturbed this harmonious balance. Indeed, there has been a 40% increase of CO2 into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, much to the detriment of our planet and all life on earth.

These extremes, like the UK’s very unusual 5 heatwaves that started in May are now occurring because just a small change in the once stable baseline triggers large scale reactions. The warmer air holds more moisture leading to storms, and melting arctic ice reflects less sunlight back into space, accelerating further warming.

Also we need to acknowledge that there is a large El Nino forming in the Pacific that is apparently the biggest for a thousand years. That’s right. One. Thousand. Years.

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern that happens every two to seven years. Trade winds that usually blow from east to west across the Pacific weaken. This leads to warm surface water moving to the west coast of the Americas, instead of staying around Asia. Heat released from the ocean’s surface goes into the atmosphere and  significantly raises global temperatures. This results in high temperatures around the world and an increase in storms.

From measurements made of the current temperatures in the Pacific ocean, this  El Nino is an exceedingly, excessively humungous one that will have ramifications around the globe.

Indeed, quite recently, a UK minister has urged the UK population to stock up their cupboards exactly because the UK, which normally does not suffer too badly from El Ninos, is expected to experience severe storms in the Autumn and Winter. Interesting.  Not many of us Brits are ‘preppers’ so I am wondering what exactly we are meant to do. But I did find myself buying a few more tinned baked beans this weekend. Which, I suppose, we would be eating cold, as if the electricity fails our flat we will have not have any means of heating the beans.

Us humans, we fair badly in all of this. Research highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that when warming reaches 1.7 to 1.8C this will expose half of the world population to periods of life-threatening heat and humidity. However, let’s not forget all life on earth, from the insects that used to cover the windscreen of the car in the summer to dying coral reefs in the deep blue sea, that is increasingly discoloured with algae.

I could give you many statistics, but a link here will tell you more about climate science and the oceans warming. However, I now want to look closer at the term, ‘wet bulb effect’, because one of the UK heatwaves was a wet-bulb heatwave.

A wet-bulb event is a dangerous weather condition when extreme heat combines high humidity and sweat does not cool the human body. Interestingly scientists measure this by wrapping a thermometer in a wet cloth. In dry heat the water in the cloth evaporates and cools the bulb. But if the air is humid, the water in the cloth does not evaporate giving the ‘wet-bulb’ reading.  Heat stress will begin around 31C (88F) during a wet-bulb event and is fatal at 35C (95C).

One of the UK heatwaves was a wet-bulb event, and I can tell you it was horrid. Remember we are a nation that does not have universal air conditioning, but before I tell you what I intend to do personally to get through this heat, let’s look closer at how harmful this heat is to human life.

The medical consequences

It is well known that high temperatures make medical problems worse for us all, but especially older people. Our ageing bodies find it far harder to adapt to the extremes of heat, and indeed cold. But heat not only makes us older people ill, these heatwaves also cause many deaths. For instance, up to the end of July, France recorded 7,000 excess deaths during their heatwaves. In the UK 2,877 excess deaths were recorded during the 4-day heatwave in May and the 8-day heatwave in June.

Not only that, our medical infrastructure is ill-equipped for heat with one hospital doctor reporting that the temperature on the geriatric ward that he worked on reached 36C (96.8F). To say this is not safe for both patients and staff (who the media reported were fainting whilst working in these high temperatures) is rather understating things.  The clinical vice-president of the UK’s Royal College of Physicians firmly states that extreme weather is indeed a patient safety issue.

Global warming – the consequences

And now we have the horrific tragedy in Nepal and China, not that we know much about what happened on the China side.

I like the turn of phrase in one article (as far as one can like these descriptions) which in its first sentence said – ‘the earth between our feet is getting twitchier.’  Because (and I am appalled that I did not know this) the Nepal tragedy is not the first of its kind. There have been three very similar events of our warming climate causing landslips, with huge deluges and deaths. One in 2021 was in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand damaging two hydroelectric power plants and causing 200 deaths, another in early 2025 with the collapse of part of a glacier in Switzerland buried, thankfully, an already evacuated village, and in August 2025 a landslide in an Alaskan fjord created a 500-metre-high wave, in an area, says the writer, frequented by many cruise ships.

We all know our glaciers are shrinking as there are many photographs shown of the glacier before and the glacier now. But what the shrinking also indicates is that the permafrost, snow and ice that previously glued the glacier together, alongside the mountains nearby, these are no longer there – all our glaciers and nearby mountains are unstable now. As the author of this article on these events concludes:

“The increasingly temperamental behaviour of the earth beneath our feet teaches us that global warming is all-pervasive. It will intrude into every aspect of our lives and livelihood and leave no part of the planet untouched. As the world processes the horror of the events in Nepal and Tibet, it is a lesson that we ignore at our peril.”

What has been done?

So, what can be done to prevent these hideous events? What can be done to prevent all these early deaths from the overwhelming heat that we, in this planet, face now and in the future?

Or should I say what has already been done to halt this process.

I hear, in the background, talk of Andy Burnham (our new Prime Minister) going to this year’s COP. This is apparently COP 31. I have a vague idea that our elders and betters meet annually to discuss global warming, but what exactly is COP? What is agreed? Then there is the Paris Agreement – what the heck is that?

COP stands for Conference of the Parties and is the decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was set up in 1992 during the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  It is an annual global climate summit, where nearly 200 countries meet to address global warming and negotiate world-wide commitments.

Well, you hope that things get sorted there, don’t you!

Or is this just a talking shop?

Well, apparently things do get done – up to a point. For instance, I understand that the 2015 Paris Agreement set a target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. This was an outcome of previous COPs and is thought by many to be a landmark agreement.

The agreement consists of three singular aims:

• Mitigation – reducing emissions by all signatories
• Adaptation – adapting to the consequence of climate change
• Finance – support from rich countries for poorer countries

Oh brilliant, one thinks. But. But. What actually materialises from these fine words? Unfortunately, last year’s COP was considered a failure and there was a veritable catalogue of non-happenings.

For instance:

• Countries agreed only to begin discussions on a voluntary fossil-fuel road map and there was no mention of fossil fuels in the final text!
• A Deforestation roadmap was scrapped
• Global methane status showed insufficient progress
• Brazil approved off-shore drilling near one of the richest marine ecosystems at the mouth of the Amazon.

And perhaps the worst non-happening:

• The UN confirmed that surpassing 1.5C and getting to 1.8C is now inevitable

 Oh, and one more thing.

• The US skipped COP30 entirely.

Dear American friends who read this blog, I know many of you are unhappy with Trump – but really, this is just awful, this is a disgrace and such a dereliction of duty and care for the planet. Yes, the last COP was considered a failure, but nevertheless people did at the very least get together and try to do their best. This walkout is all Trump’s doing. The US has withdrawn twice: the first withdrawal was in Trump’s first term, then in January 2025 Trump signed an Executive Order to pull out of the agreement on his first day in office.

The US, btw, is merely the second worst emitter of greenhouses gases. The list of top emitters is as follows:

• China
• United States
• India
• The EU
• Russia
• Indonesia

Together these nations omit 60% of greenhouse gasses. An aside here, in the book The Great Derangement, Ghosh argues that without empires and the way imperialism held back whole countries and continents, global warming would have happened far, far earlier.

 A question

Now this leads to an ‘interesting’ conundrum. As poorer countries become wealthier (which is obviously what everyone wants) and these populations have more ability to buy basic necessities, how far do you think absolutely everyone, and Ghosh means everyone throughout the world, can have a car, a house, a fridge and a television? Oh, and, air conditioning?  These are all the things that we see as kind of normal to have, but Ghosh says, think about it. The world would fry to a crisp. And this brings us to tricky philosophical questions that directly affect at least 10% of the world’s population. Do you prevent the poorer nations developing any further? Or do you share your resources?

And that brings us to this word that is bandied around a lot in the UK. Growth. The key question here is, can our planet sustain eternal growth? And the answer is no. But that is very much a notion that is resisted by us in the First World. What, stop our country’s annual growth? No way. Reduce our standard of living and way of life? Good heavens no!

I will leave it at that, as looking in depth at ‘Growth’ is a whole other blog. But an ‘interesting point’, do you not think?

The impact of Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and COP

Returning to the impact of the US leaving the Paris Agreement, it is deeply felt and there is very much a leadership vacuum although, apparently, China and the EU are more predominant after the US withdrawal.

It also has isolated the US as it the only country in the world that has actively chosen to leave the pact. Furthermore, the US sits beside Libya, Yemen and, ironically, Iran as the only other non-members of the Paris Agreement. The US has also defunded Climate Aid which was helping low-income countries to transition to green energy and adapt to rising sea-levels, and expanded fossil fuel extraction in its own country. All in all, this is a sorry tale to tell.

Overall, there were some positive outcomes from COP30, but its inability to secure concrete commitments on phasing out fossil fuels shows that there is very much a political disconnect amongst nations around action. There were many fine words, but these did not appear to deal with the reality of global warming.

The next COP, to be held in November in Turkey, is seen as a test of the credibility of these annual meetings. And how far the fine words go towards nations collaborating and taking real action against the coming disaster.

Is this lack of urgency, madness?

So, I am asking – now we know reducing fossil fuels is a contentious issue, is it that we are all collectively mad? Will people look back at us, and say – what were you thinking, let alone doing? Ghosh argues that art and literature has failed to alert us, because when writers do set their sights on the consequences of global warming these works are seen as science fiction and not worthy of being considered serious fiction.

Ghosh continues, when the rising seas make London and New York uninhabitable will people look back at literature and say where are the traces and portents of their now altered world. Actually, may I interrupt Ghosh’s argument to say read some of Margaret Attwood and there lies some great fiction on our future. But overall, we are blind to it all. This, indeed, argues Ghosh, is The Age of the Great Derangement.

What can we do?

I can just hear some people say, but what can we do? We are helpless, we can’t change China or America’s trajectory. We simply cannot do anything.

Well, yes. And possibly, no. I mean, in the first instance, we could vote for the right people. People who grasp what needs to be done. People who understand that Net Zero is achievable and not something to work against.  Net Zero btw, is the UK’s legally binding target to balance the amount of greenhouse gases the UK produces with the amount it removes. This is to be reached by 2050. This is not stopping all carbon emissions this is merely that any emissions still around in 2050 (when I’m 104) is offset by removing an equivalent amount by quite simple means, like tree planting and carbon capture technology.

Unfortunately there are a number of people in the UK who are not keen on the idea of Net Zero, especially Reform and the Conservative party and some of the media who parrot right wing arguments. And yet the public is not as anti-Net Zero as some would like to think. A recent poll revealed that 40% of voters are strongly in favour of Net Zero, almost double the 24% against it.

So, there you are, there’s a solid number of people in the UK who are willing to grasp the nettle of Climate Change. We want things to change, we want people to think outside the box, we don’t want a devasted earth left for our grandchildren.

And yet nothing much is done.

I know I might seem to be a Cassandra, only interested in doom and gloom. No, that’s not how I see myself. I am a realist. I want to know what is happening, and I want to understand where things are going.

What am I doing personally?

So, after all these fine words of mine – what am I going to do about it? I mean I really, really do not want to go through another summer of going to bed at night when the bedroom’s temperature is 28C (82.4F). Indeed, next summer is going to be very much worse, as in hotter, because of the El Nino in the Pacific.

Well first of all: I have contacted our local Climate Hub. Did you know there are over 40 of these around the UK, see this link for their whereabouts. The Climate Hub put me in touch with the Ovesco Community Energy company (link here) and their Head of Energy Advice, Nicki Myers, and this week we are having a home visit from her to advise on how to cool our flat.

We already pull down the blinds, shut the curtains and windows during the heat of the day. We have an excellent rotating column fan, plus small desk top fans for each of our desks.  We wear loose clothing, use old fashioned fans and put cold flannels on the back of our necks. And yet our flat heats up hugely. The bedroom was at 28C for several days during the 5 heatwaves – it was impossible to sleep.

The advice we are getting from Ovesco comes free and is government funded. So, any UK readers do look out for your local Climate Hub and see what information and advice is there for you. It will be interesting to hear what a neutral expert, someone not from any commercial body or firm, has to say.

 Air conditioning?

Then there is air conditioning. I’ve always looked at the States and wondered at air conditioning and its sustainability. And to be honest, I have been dead against air conditioning en masse.  Because, truly, air conditioning is unsustainable for the planet. Pumping out all that hot air – it shouldn’t be used.

A very recent article (today, 6th September) was an interesting read. It states that it is inevitable that AC demand will accelerate around the world. As I expected the article states that 90% of households in the States have AC – no surprise there – while low income countries have an exceedingly low take-up of AC. In Indonesia the share is only 9% while India, where nearly half the year has temperatures hitting at least 35C (95F) AC is in only 5% of households. The UK has fewer than 5% households with air con and apparently 58% of the  French would rather suffer the consequences of heat to protect the environment.

However, demand for air conditioning will, without a doubt, soar and not only by householders. AC will be needed world wide for the production and delivery of food, pharmaceuticals, and production of all kinds, not forgetting schools, care homes and hospitals. Indeed the entire workforce will need cooler working conditions. Strangely, but perhaps not, despite the doom-laden statistics in this article, the author concludes that with cooler conditions provided by AC, minds can safely ponder and work on the world-wide problem of global warming, hopefully coming up with a solution to producing zero-carbon energy on a vast scale.

Air conditioning for me?

Yes, we are seriously considering air conditioning because, after this summer, I realise I cannot live in this flat without doing something to bring the heat down. And so, at the end of September we are to have a site survey to put in a form of air conditioning. Not the huge heat pump variety but a smaller version that does not provide heat to the radiators, instead it is an air-to-air version with a much smaller pump, the size of a small suitcase. This has a pipe going into the dwelling and the system provides cool air in the summer and warm air in the winter.

I still feel a lot of guilt even thinking about this air con system as it does pump out some heat. (As does my gas boiler) Air con should not be the answer, we should prevent the heat from hitting our housing in the first place, through smaller windows that are opened inside to allow for outdoor shutters.

But, needs must as I don’t think my 80-yr-old body can take another summer like we’ve had recently. I put this down to my Scottish genes. I like the cold! Cool, cool breezes are my thing, and as the 2027 summer is predicated to be far worse, I have to act now before next year’s heat.

I’d like to just say here and now, do be wary of down-sizing to a leasehold flat. The biggest hurdle is not my guilt, it is the freeholder. We have to ‘apply’ to the freeholder to get permission to do this. As a leaseholder you think you own your flat, but you don’t really.

Our housing stock is not fit for purpose

The trouble is the UK housing stock, including our flat, is not built for the hot weather. Much of the housing in the UK is old as in really old. I remember a young estate agent (around 20ish) asking about the age of our house she was putting us on their books. When I said it was very old, she replied, ‘oh do you mean just after the Second World War?’! I had to tell her, ‘err no, it’s Victorian, built around the 1860s!’ These older houses were built long before insulation and our country is still trying to catch up on this.

Much of the building that has gone on in my lifetime has been about capturing the sunlight, and still, I see estate agents recommending housing that ‘has sun flooding the house, bringing light to the rooms’. Err, that’s a big no, we don’t want that. Not now we don’t. Also how often do you see some modern new builds built with black cladding and large windows?! I can point to those in our small town – they look good, but my word, is that the wrong thing to do!

We need to prepare for the coming onslaught of heat that will follow this unusually hot year. Because this hot year is not a one-off and anyway, the coming El Nino is to be enormous and will have a huge effect on the climate of this planet.

Consequently, all housing stock in the UK needs retrofitting with outside blinds or awnings to prevent the sun coming in. Yes, there needs to be a continuation of insulating old housing stock. But where are the laws to insist on all new housing stock having heat pumps instead of boilers, solar panels on each roof, and outside shutters?  I see portable plug-in solar panels are now available for sale and there are government grants available that help people install solar panels, but clear regulations are needed to not just encourage, but actively make builders build houses that will withstand the storms and heat that is coming.

Our means of transport

The transport system in the UK is also something to consider. We had two train derailments this year, one just outside the town where I live. What are these train tracks made of? I don’t hear of this occurring in India or parts of Spain where temperatures get up to 40C and over. All cars should be electric as soon as possible although whether our electricity sub-stations can take all the extra work is another matter. And buses which are used a great deal in the UK – these need to have air-conditioning, as they were so very hot during our 5 heatwaves.

With the UN now saying the planet is definitely on the way to heat up to 1.8C we need to adapt the UK to this heat.

Final thoughts

So, where does this lead me and all of us. Well, from now on I shall support our local Climate Hub in all its work. I will continue to keep myself up-to-date with everything to do with Climate Change. If I was younger, I would become not just a campaigner (which I will now become) I would be a climate agitator, I can totally empathise with young people protesting in the way they do.

Meanwhile, politically, we need to vote the right people in. Our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, does seem to be a ‘nice’ empathetic kind of guy, who has said many ‘nice’ things about how things need to change. Good for you, Andy, I am all for it.  But he is still acting rather like a Mayor of Great Britain (he was the Mayor of Manchester – and did a very good job there).  I think I need to hear more about his views on foreign policy, and I need to hear far more on Climate Change on which he has been rather silent.

Come on, Andy say something meaningful about the huge challenge this planet faces – say change needs to happen here.  Because if you don’t, you are like all other politicians around the world who either pedal fantasies and lies about global warming or are far too fearful of what the changes actually mean and, indeed, of putting them into  practice.

In November we need to watch COP31 very closely, because if a new Agreement on fossil fuels, similar to the Paris Agreement breakthrough, is not agreed – world-wide. Then indeed this is the Age of Madness.

We will be living from that day onwards in the Age of the Great Derangement.

Penny Kocher, 6th September, 2026

Further reading and sources

Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement. Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and  London. 2016

The Royal Society. A Short Guide to Climate Science.

Eduardo Porto, Air conditioners are our best bet in the fight against extreme heat – whether we like it or not. The Guardian, 6 September 2026

Kiran Stacey, Damian Carrington, Minister tells Brits to stock up on days of supplies after ‘supersize’ El Nino warning. The Guardian, 3 September 2026

Adam Morton, Global heating will hit at least 1.8C, UN warns, and there are ‘no good outcomes’. The Guardian, 2 September 2026

Michael Mann, Nepal’s glacier collapse foreshadowed a future of climate disaster. The Guardian, 1 September 2026

Bill McGuire, The Nepal and Tibet flood is a warning: melting snow and ice will bring more disasters around the world. The Guardian, 1 September 2026

Pippa Neil, Summer of 2026 was UK’s hottest on record, Met office says. The Guardian, 1 September 2026

James Jackson, Mathias Larsen, Wildfires and a summer of extreme heat mean Andy Burnham can’t stay quiet on climate any longer. theconversation.com 24 August 2026

Sander van der Linden, Rachel O’Boyle, Climate doom may discourage climate action, but there’s a way to counter it. 24 August 2026, theconversation.com

Saman Sobhani, What if cities were designed for wildlife as well as people. Copyright The Conservation Trust (UK) Limited, theconversation.com 24 August 2026.

Denis Campbell, Extreme heat more dangerous for people 60 and over than previously thought. The Guardian, 17 August 2026

thelancet.com, Exceeding human heat tolerance in a warming, ageing world: a global project modelling study. The Lancet, 17 August 2026

Damien Gayle, Rightwing narrative fuelling false belief UK public oppose Net Zero, study finds. The Guardian, 20 March 2026